BE INSPIRED Session featuring Emmy Lou Virginia

Tell us a bit about your approach to the work you do, your time in the business and a few personal facts about you.

I love to photograph the intersection of real moments and beauty, and so for the past 4 years I’ve called myself a lifestyle photographer. Somewhere along the way, I realized that my calling lay in capturing families and their stories to save forever. Which sometimes means I photograph a mother holding her newborn and smelling its new baby skin, and sometimes means I photograph a toddler picking their nose. Because real life has real moments like these.

What about this session was most memorable?

I used to focus all of my creative energy on client work, and my personal work was mostly just grabbing my camera to document a moment every couple of weeks. But as I started seeing more of my fellow photographers’ work on instagram, I started envying the beautiful moments they’d captured of their own life. I wanted that. So in 2016, I decided one of my goals would be to be more intentional about capturing personal work I loved. To treat it with the same care I had for client work. At first, it was a challenge, but I grew to love the time I could put into it – generally my only constraints were the
patience level of my toddler (which, admittedly, is low) and/or the hunger tolerance of my husband (also low). (Because why is that pretty sunset light always at dinner time?)
In September, we took a 3-week road trip from our home in Vancouver, Canada, all the way down to Joshua Tree Park. We stayed at Airbnbs or with friends & family along the way, and adventured through the Redwoods, the California coast, Joshua Tree Park, the Sequoias, Yosemite, and the Oregon Coast. We had so many wonderful moments. (Also many not-so-wonderful moments trying to convince our 2.5 year old to stay in his car seat during the long drive. I never want to listen to kids’ music again.) But it was so worth it to see his sheer joy as he ran among the sand dunes or looked up at the towering trees, and we made so many beautiful memories on this trip – some of which I actually managed to capture!

Your best photographer/session advice?

One thing I’ve been challenging myself to do is to look at the same scene from several different angles. It’s so rewarding to be able to capture three or four different shots just by stepping back or moving closer, changing your position or your perspective. And using backlight and direct light to create different moods!
Another, completely different piece of advice, not actually photography-related, is something we’ve been having fun with on our family trips ever since our little guy was born. Nearly every trip we’ve gone on, we’ve taken small clips of video footage throughout (using my Canon 6D), and created a video montage of our time together. Not only is this a fun creative challenge for me as a photographer and my husband as someone who works in animation, but it’s such an amazing keepsake for us and our son. He absolutely loves to watch these videos, again and again, and it reminds us of all the joy we’ve shared together. You can see the road trip video we put together from this trip : WATCH VIDEO HERE (Obviously, judging from all the camera shake, we’re far from professionals – but it’s so fun!)

What gear was used to achieve these?

Last, but not least; include a small bio and social media links
I am a Vancouver-based natural light photographer. I’m married to a wonderful man, we have a mischievous little 3-year old, and we live in a tiny white home full of windows and light and love.